Jerry Wayne Odom Jr.

Myspace.com

Myspace.com is an online networking service started in 2003 for up and coming bands to network with fanbases and share music. The concept caught on with extreme popularity in the online community and now millions of people are using myspace. I first came across myspace when I discovered a bunch of log entries for this website that showed myspace members hot linking to pictures. The next thing I know I've been clicking though profiles for over an hour looking at the various members linking to my site and then Baton Rouge local stuff. Myspace is popular with young, outgoing and on the whole normal people unlike other online community sites that have developed over the years. Whats more is that there are very few spammers in this social network in comparison with other sites I've seen.

What makes myspace different?

My impression of Myspace is that its easy to use but hard to abuse. Its a social networking tool with a ton of avaiable settings and customizable options at your disposal. Setting up is easy to do but takes time and you can only expand your contacts through real socializing. People are here to make friends and not just pick people up which makes it more appealing than a dating site.

Also in order for people to really communicate with you they've got to become your friend which makes it much harder to abuse than chat. There is a built in spam protection in that you leave a breadcrumb trail about your personality through your friends, your comments, blogs and comments by your friends. So you can do investigative work on potential friends and most can quickly determine a possible friend from a system abuser.

Its not a dating site or a social tool that quickly went dating site. At myspace people can look for love but you'll most often find groups of friends who are simply chatting with friends. Its bad to be considered a dating site because most often they're hastily put up, abused by spammers and have an over abundance of people who are embarrassed or scared to be there. Also dating is inherently bad for socializing on the whole because people blow off other people they're not interested in so as to not lead others on. You're not leading people on by simply becoming friends and thats a tool that attracts new users. People want to tell their day to day friends about this site and their user base is growing 3 million+ users monthly to prove it.

I've personally been trying out myspace for about a month or so now. I signed up for it previously but didn't use it until research dictated so. I've managed to run down alot of friends I haven't seen in quite a while and actually have stayed in touch. For me its been a bit like being dynamic pen pals. Its fun and I think we'll see alot of good things come out of Myspace.